Last week we looked at an endgame and came up with two plans for white. They were not sufficient to gain advantage. Black’s position is solid and it is not easy to break through. Black has one weakness – the white passed pawn on b3. It is useful t...
Before looking at a training game that I had while playing this endgame let us review general ideas of why playing out endgames is important. Generally, we have more experience with openings and middlegames because these stages of the game happen ...
This week we will do something different. Currently, I am playing in the US Women’s Championship in St. Louis. It is hosted along with the US Men’s Championship in the already well-known St. Louis Chess Club and Scholastic Center. This year the wo...
We return to the position studied last week. Let us review our findings from the previous game. Black is better because of an extra pawn but it is not enough for an easy win. Black should be careful of not coming under attack on the kingside, espe...
The inspiration for the name “Pawn Fatale” is a recent Britney Spears’ album “Femme Fatale”. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, "femme fatale" is a seductive woman who lures men into dangerous or compromising situations; or a woman who attra...
Last week we evaluated the following position and looked at a training game I played from here: Now we will continue with the same position, going a little deeper. Let me just remind you of the conclusions from the last article concer...
Seeing a new position for the first time, a chess player sees bits and pieces that eventually form into ideas and lead to a positional evaluation. The quality of the positional assessment depends on many things. Factors include how familiar the po...
If you will remember, last week we were looking at this endgame: And concluded that white should seriously consider trading knights. Today we will discuss two plans associated with Nc4: 3. The first plan is to double white rooks on the e-...
The following position resulted from the Benko Gambit, a rather typical pawn structure. It happened recently in one of my games played in the Pittsburgh Chess League. During the game I felt there wer...
I stumbled upon the endgame that we will analyze today when watching the games from the round robin tournament in Kharkov, Ukraine, which ended not long ago. I didn’t see the whole game but only up to this position: Then I saved the game into m...
This week we will look at an endgame where black has to show some good defensive skills to get a draw. However, the position is not as bad as it looks. A computer engine would evaluate it as a half-pawn advantage for white. The real material on ...
When we talk about opening theory our imagination wanders to numerous opening lines that are memorized, some critical positions, and some novelties played recently, heated discussions of favorite lines. Opening theory is a term that is used by ama...
Today, we will look at the precision with which Bobby Fischer won an endgame against Acevedo. His play is marked by accomplishing his plans while not giving the opponent a chance to breathe. The endgame is probably not among the most known ones th...
Recently, I had the chance of a lifetime to celebrate chess at the Sundance Festival with the World Chess Hall of Fame and Museum. The museum and Hall of Fame are relocating to St. Louis – a young but already well known chess center in the US. I w...
The position that we will consider today looks very sad for black. Considering the fact that it was played between two top class players – Ivanchuk and Radjabov one can assume that white won without a problem. At such high level of play, white sho...
I was attracted to this endgame because of the final result at first. The rating difference of about 200 points between the player of the black pieces and the player of the white pieces is not that big a difference when seeing that white is up a p...
I remember reading an interview a few years ago with a prominent Russian GM, I don’t remember exactly wether it was Bareev or someone else but what struck me back then was the complaint that Russia does not have enough young talented chess players...
The following game happened in the fifth round of the annual National Open tournament in Las Vegas. GMs Shulman and Friedel had a perfect score of four out of four. Josh captured the initiative out of the opening and did not let the advantage slip...
Today, I will deviate from my usual format of playing out the endgames but instead will present the analysis of the endgame mentioned in the last article. The reason is that I followed the game in live format and at the same time analyzed with an ...
The 3rd Remco Heite GM tournament recently was played in Wolvega, The Netherlands. The winners of the previous events, Van Wely in 2006 and Macieja in 2008, participated. There were six players competing in a round robin. The final crosstable show...
We got another rather complicated endgame to look at. My coach and I had a hard time figuring out the plans for both sides. It is generally tough to deal with the tandem of rook + knight when there are a lot of pawns on the board. The knights can ...
With the "King and Pawn Ending" video series I set out to achieve one simple goal: Provide the most fundamental examples necessary in order for someone to go from a basic/beginner's knowledge, to a master level understanding of the most critical K...
This comprehensive series instructs on perhaps the most practical and commonly reached type of endgames (Rook Endings). It is designed to take a chess player with the most limited knowledge of basic rook ending ideas -- to a master level understan...
Giovanni Portilho Vescovi was born June 14, 1978 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He became an IM in 1993 and a GM in 1998. In 1998, he won a gold medal in the World Junior Team Championship (U-20) playing first board for Brazil. In 2001, he won the Sout...
